Couple touched many lives

-Daughter applauds retiring parents' devotion to students.

-Daughter applauds retiring parents' devotion to students.

May 21, 2008|ANNA MARI HUMNICKY

MY TURN Soon, Greg and Barb Humnicky will be retiring from the South Bend Community School Corp. after many years of dedicated service. I wanted to express my thoughts, as their daughter, about their many career accomplishments and, more importantly, the many lives they have touched. Before he was an athletic director, my father was a positive influence on many lives as a teacher, coach and official. As an athletic director, he understood the important role that extracurricular activities played in the lives of teenagers and dedicated his work to increasing the number of opportunities for student-athletes of all skill levels. My father understood that the lessons learned from athletics led to increased opportunities once students left the halls of Clay High School. He also had an enormous impact on the athletic facilities at Clay. With help from his closest friends and biggest supporters, my father led the push for funding to build the auxiliary gym at Clay, which I have affectionately nicknamed "The House that Greg Built." The new facilities allowed for the girls teams to have equal status as the boys teams, something that was sorely lacking when my father started at Clay as athletic director in 1988. As a sophomore at Clay that year and a member of the girls basketball, cross country and track teams, I knew firsthand the inequalities that existed. One of his first acts as athletic director was to replace the more than decade-old basketball uniforms for the girls teams. While the facilities projects were not completed until many years after I graduated, I know the impact that the new facilities had on scheduling practices and events. As for my mother, while known for the food she served to countless participants at athletic tournaments and her famous cookies in the hospitality room at Clay games, she had a career of her own. She is retiring as librarian at Clay High School, but also served at Madison, Muessel, Harrison and Wilson schools. During her years in the elementary schools she worked tirelessly to bring a paid breakfast program to students from low-income households who, more times than not, came to school with an empty stomach. Many former students will surely remember their "Wild Things" costume made out of a paper grocery bag that they decorated in my mother's library, aptly timed close to Halloween so that those without money for a costume would not go without. Or perhaps you will remember the green eggs and ham that she cooked for all to enjoy while she read the Dr. Seuss book with the same name. She also won "Teacher of the Year" for the elementary schools, quite an uncommon honor for a librarian. Her libraries were always brimming with energy and vitality -- something rarely found in a place normally reserved for quiet reading and research. I now live in Atlanta and I am almost six years into a career as an attorney. My brother Phil (a 1988 Clay graduate) lives in the Washington, D.C., area and is a photographer for Georgetown University. We are everything that we are because of my parents. They taught us the extraordinary values of honesty, hard work and dedication, values that at times seem uncommon in this world. I have often said, "They sacrificed so my brother and I could fulfill our dreams." However, I believe I misspoke. Instead, my parents are fulfilled by their careers as a result of our successes, as well as their own. I do not mean only my brother and I, but instead I mean every student and athlete they met along the way -- our combined successes are the ultimate hallmark of my parents' careers. Mr. and Mrs. Humnicky, you are an honor to your South Bend heritage. We applaud your accomplishments, thank you for our successes, and wish you well on your journey into retirement. Anna Mari Humnicky, now of Atlanta, is a 1991 Clay High School graduate.